


i don't have to see you right now

by craftingdead



Series: charlie will make cd a common tag if it kills them [32]
Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Gen, regular charlie shit so like, xavier-centric/pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: Face stained in the ceilingWhy does it keep saying,I don't have to see you right nowI don't have to see you right now(Sometimes, Xavier wishes every patient he has will be his last, if solely for the fact that everything would be okay.)





	i don't have to see you right now

**Author's Note:**

> Digging like you can bury  
> Something that cannot die  
> We could wash the dirt off our hands now  
> Keep it from living underground

“My son died young,” Gray tells you, turning his face away. 

“I’m so sorry,” you say because it’s the only thing you know how to say at this point. You aren’t the most empathetic person, so you have to rely on sympathy to get your message through. It’s not a lack of understanding, it’s an absence of relation, of feeling; everyone’s lost someone to this hell, but not in any specific, consistent way. Everyone tunes a guitar differently—not everyone loses a younger brother, an older sibling, a mother, a son, a dog, or a lover.

“Not like that… he didn’t die from the apocalypse. Happened a year before, actually. He got drunk with his friends. It was—it was a stupid accident. A dare from one of them. Someone must have slipped something into his drink and it fuzzed up his mind even more and he… he jumped from Saint’s Bridge. He didn’t survive.” Gray has a drink clutched in one hand. You do, too.

You don’t know what to say. Sure, it’s easier to sympathize when you’ve all lost to the Doctor, but this? It’s different, to say the least. “Was he suicidal at all?” you say because you know how to comfort those kinds of people. You had to. You were a medical expert in the apocalypse.

“No, no,” Gray says and takes another drink. “He wasn’t suicidal at all. He just wasn’t ready for the fall.”

His eyes glaze over around this part, and you look down to see most of the bottle empty and hanging limp from his hand. It looks like it’s going to drop and shatter on the ground. You won’t be surprised if it does.

“I remember…” Gray’s voice cracks and drops off. “I remember getting the call. I was in the middle of a meeting and… and I just… ran out of it. Dropped everything. I almost got fired but they—they saw the news and got calls by the next morning and understood. They dragged his body out of the water and he was bleeding and coughing up water but he was still alive by the time I got there.” He swigs from an empty bottle and sighs. “My boy was still alive when I got there.

“They said… that area, it has a lot of rocks around it. He hit one during the fall. It impaled through his chest, but it didn’t kill him. Not right away. They gave him to me and I pulled him to my chest and… my husband, he was halfway across the country. He didn’t get to see our… our son. I swear I’ll never forget his last words.”

“What were they?” you ask in a whisper. You don’t want to, but you know that’s what Gray wants you to ask. He’s looking at you with a cracked, tears-welling-up smile as he continues.

“He said, ‘they dared me, Pa. You know I could never back down from a dare.’ And he was laughing because he knew I always felt better whenever he laughed. I don’t even think he knew what was happening—that he was dying. The medics let me hold him to my chest, on the ground, as he bled out. It didn’t take long. Just one moment he was there and the next… the next he was gone. And I never got mad at him. I just said, ‘I know.’ Because I did. Because he was my boy, and I knew everything about him.” Gray’s voice is cracking. “He was only nineteen. It was his freshman year of college. He majored in graphic design. He didn’t even get through one semester.”

He’s breathing the words by the time he gets to the end, barely more than a whisper. You can barely hear it, but you still do, because he wants you to listen. “I almost sued the kids. But I didn’t. Because it was a dare. And he—he could fucking, he could never back down from a dare. Because he was my boy. And if there was one thing he learned from me, it was to never back down from a challenge. And he died in my arms.”

She’s a nice girl, that Shelby is. Jin always talked highly of her; how she provided food, supplies, shelter for him while he was separated from the main group. He looks unto her and her accomplishments with pride, and you guess you do, too.

“How many other patients, have you had like this?” she asks one day as you’re bringing her food. You can’t hear as well or talk as well, but the two of you enjoy chatting through the long hours. You set it down next to her, sit a good few feet away (just a safety precaution) and think long and hard on that.

“That’s hard to say,” you say, and she giggles. She’s always found your accent funny, and you don’t mind her laughter. “I’ve had many patients who have been bitten, but only a select few who have actively been infected by Ross. You are, in fact, my fifth.”

“Your third?” she says, and though she’s not bewildered like you would expect, she’s still surprised. “You’ve had—five whole people who’ve been infected by that Ross man, that you’ve actually treated before? Wow, I thought it would be a much smaller number. Like, I was your second or third or something.”

“Yes, well, most of the other patients were from the very beginning of the apocalypse, right after the news got out about the infection and Ross. They were co-workers of mine. Ross wanted to leave a mark on our lab, and so he did.”

“Damn, that must have sucked,” she says idly, and you nod in agreement as she grabs the plate and balances it on her lap, stabbing at the food with her fork. And then after that, seeing as she’s much blunter than a lot of the people who you know, she says, “And how many of them have died?”

You look over to her. She’s eating beans, more than likely canned, and doesn’t gag once. Weird. Most people at the CDC hate the stuff. There’s actually been an attempted ban on canned beans, but it failed; they needed all the food they could get.

“Well…” you start, and she tips her head towards your direction, ever so slightly. “I’ve lost… I’ve lost most… all of my bitten patients and I’ve lost… I’ve lost all of my infected patients, too. But that was before we have the information we do now. So I betcha that your chances of survival have gone up at least ten percent from original estimates!”

“Ten percent,” she muses. “That’s not a very high number.”

“Yes, well, it’s a step up from before.”

She chokes down the rest of her food, a little too fast, and then hands the utensils back to you. After this, they would get a very harsh washing and scrubbing and maybe even bleaching, if Gray is paranoid enough. Or they’ll just get thrown out, one of the three. “Well, thanks for trying, at least,” she says.

It’s so sad, seeing a nice, young girl like Shelby get sicker and sicker as the days go by. It’s always harder, seeing the young ones sick. Anyone under twenty-five always pulls at your heartstrings, but that may just be because you’re growing older as the days pass by and it’s harder to ignore the creak of your joints. You’re just around forty, and yet you feel like you’ve aged a century and then two more.

“What was your family like, before the apocalypse,” she asks one time when you come in to draw blood.

She’s a brave girl—braver than half of the blood tests you’ve drawn from other people in the last six months. She just solemnly sticks out her arm and barely flinches, even when you need to root around to find a vein. She always asks for Scooby-Doo band-aids afterward, and one of these days you might indulge her.

“Well,” you start, “they were nice. My mother was a professor at the community college, and my father worked in town. Helped the mayor. I came from a larger town, just under twenty-thousand people, I’m pretty sure. I had a younger sister, and she went on to become a veterinarian. She always loved animals, while I was more curious about the human aspects of things.

“My parents got divorced right after I turned twenty-one, when my sister was sixteen because they believed it would make everyone happier. My mom remarried another professor she met soon after, and my dad never did, instead deciding to focus on his job and career.”

Shelby makes a little “hmm” sound, which you don’t understand. “Did you ever get married yourself?” she asks as you pull the needle out of her skin. Doesn’t even flinch. You still find it impressive, compared to fully grown armed men who have cried at the sight of needles.

“Nope,” you say, involuntarily popping the p, just like you did when you were younger. “I was like my dad, too busy with my work. I dated a few people, but we never tied the knot officially. My sister got married within two years of knowing some boy, and somehow, they managed to stay together until the very end. To this day, I never know how she did it.”

She laughs at that, and you smile. “I remember, some girl I knew, around three years older than me, got married at eighteen. Her parents were  _ furious. _ It was funny back then.”

“I bet it was,” you say, tuck the needle and the vial away safely, protected well, and then lay them down on a table to the side before sitting next to Shelby. “How old were you when it happened?”

“I was around fifteen. She was a senior, I was a sophomore. She came into school the next time fuming and then flew off the island once summer came and never looked back. I heard she had a kid and was happier than she’d ever been before, and I was so proud of her. She was nice to me,” she says, a look of distance longing misting up her eyes.

“Interesting,” you say, and she presses a hand to her mouth, covering up a stupid grin. You’ve never had the heart to tell her off for it. “Now that I’ve told you about my family—what about your family? No one’s ever gotten anything out of Nick, and I’ll admit, I’ve been curious.”

She snorts, suddenly, and this time it isn’t at your voice. It startles you a little bit, even, because usually, when you ask people about their family, they’re either calm, sad, or furious. Never happy, never laughing. It’s strange. “Of course you haven’t gotten anything out of Nick,” she says with amusement in her voice. “I’ll have to get on his case about that one of these days. Anyway, you really wanna know? Probably isn’t as light as yours.”

“I’ll be fine,” you say. “I’ve always heard worse.”

“Alright. My mom and dad never married and had me and Nick young. Early twenties or so. After the first few years, my dad got too stressed and left when we were either three or four, I can’t remember. My mom lasted a few years after that before breaking, and he came back, and we ended up moving in with him. She left not too long later. She still used to visit, but it was rare. I was always closer to my dad—Nick was a mama’s boy. I never understood her at  _ all, _ but that’s just how some moms are, I guess.”

You nod and, you’ll admit, you didn’t expect that from her. “My sister was always closer with our mom. I never got it. I was closest to my grandfather. He inspired me to go to college, get my degree, you know.”   


“I didn’t really know my grandparents, but I heard that, on my dad’s side, they were amazing,” Shelby says, and you don’t press the issue. “Nick only asked about mom’s once. It was enough."

“Am I going to die?” she asks you.

“No,” you respond. “I won’t let you.”

“Thanks for trying,” she mumbles, and falls back asleep on the little cot you and Jin dragged in for her not too long ago.

You think back on your conversation with Gray as you leave.  _ He was only nineteen. It was his freshman year of college. He majored in graphic design. He didn’t even get through one semester. _ You wonder how old Shelby is, what she might have majored in if she ever went to college.

One day, you pull Ghetto to the side and ask how old Nick is.

“Not twelve, if that’s what you were thinking,” he jokes before realizing you’re serious. “He’s nineteen. His birthdays in August. Why do you wanna know, man?”

“Just was curious,” you respond.

“I’m worried about Nick,” she says, out of it, and you don’t bother responding. You just listen as she rambles on.

These days she’s becoming less and less coherent. Keeps a higher fever for longer. She never gives you enough time to respond to her questions and stories, so you’ve learned to just listen and you’ve learned when to leave, or when to chime in if you chime in at all. And, anyway, your chiming in is usually telling her when her next shot or meal is.

“He’s looking skinny. Has he been getting enough food? Don’t answer that, you probably don’t know. He used to say that no one could tell whenever he was tired or sad, but that’s a fucking lie. I can see right through him.” She pauses for a second.

“It’s like when we were teens again. He’ll probably kick my ass for telling you this, but he had a tough teenhood, or whatever it’s called. I mean, I technically did, too, but his was way worse. Had this shitty older boyfriend, or whatever their creepy relationship was. I always told him that it would fuck him up, but he never listened. He stopped listening to me long ago, even before the apocalypse, and I don’t know what’s sadder; that he hasn’t started listening to me again, despite everything, or that he’s too caught up in himself to listen to me again. Can you ask Ghetto how he’s doing the next time you’re in here? He knows him better.”

Not long after that, she passes out, and you bring her some water, food, and a book she’d been asking about for when she wakes up. Then, you force the information about Nick to the back of your mind and try not to stare at the bags under his eyes for too long.

Jin’s given up on her. You know, you can see it on his face.

“First Barney, then Sky, and now Shelby?” he spits over coffee and another failed attempt at a cure at night. It’s four AM, and your eyes are starting to drag. “Fuck, I didn’t know Barney that well. I knew Sky better, but fucking—Shelby saved my life. And I can’t even return the favor. How fucked up is that?”   


“We won’t give up,” you say, firmly, but he hangs his head and rests his cheek against the table, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Jin, I know you. I’ve known you for years, now. We won’t give up, and we’re not giving up. The cure is possible, and Ross knows it. He’s just doing—he’s pulling stuff such as this to get us down. He knows us, but for once, we also know him. At least better than before. That he’s teaming up with Red, and that’s more information than we’ve gotten in—in a year, now. It’s minor, sure, compared to the scale of Ross’s deeds, but it’s still important. We’ve got this.”

He looks up at you, and the bags under his eyes make you wince. The two of you have been working non-stop on a cure for the past few weeks, getting little sleep, but now it’s really starting to sink in. Maybe you should offer him a break.

Jin looks up at you, eyes drooping, and says, with his voice cracking, “I thought I could save Sky. Everything happened so quickly that I… I got caught up in it. With it. Nick was so optimistic and while many of the others didn’t share his views, it was infectious, in a way. So we all started to believe that he could be saved. That he would be saved. Especially after… after everything that happened with Barney.

“And it wasn’t even the infection that took him,” Jin says with a bitter laugh. “It was—it was fucking self-sacrifice. He threw himself off the roof of the White House and took Ross with him. It didn’t work, of course—Ross is still alive and he’s not, but he must’ve felt like a hero, saving Nick. We all thought of him as a hero.”

“He is a hero, Jin, he—”

“He died for NOTHING!” Jin slams his hand down on the desk, hard. “He fucking died so that… that motherfucker could come back and just continue tormenting us. If Nick hadn’t gone up to the roof… if I was quicker with the cure… if we didn’t let Ross escape… if we… if…”

You reach over and take his hand, holding it firmly and meeting his eye. “It is none of your faults that Sky did what he did, or that Ross survived when he didn’t. All of it was a coincidence. None of you could have predicted what would have happened, and blaming yourself and others won’t do you any good.”

“My family is dead because of him. My friends are dead because of him. My co-workers, that nice lady who worked at the store a block away from my apartment, even my fucking mouse—they’re all dead because of Ross. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it anymore. Because, what, he’s always ten fucking steps ahead of us!”

There are tears streaming down his face, now. And you don’t know what to say, so you just let him cry it out, face buried in his arms and wrenching sobs escaping from the pile of hair and jacket and paperwork you’ll never end up looking through.

You look up to see the door shutting, a red scarf disappearing in the gap it leaves before it closes for good.

Ghetto comes looking for him first. He wanders in while you and Jin are discussing more cure possibilities, a week or two after Jin’s breakdown; he’s been recovering, slowly but surely, and you make sure not to show him too many of the failed attempts you’ve had in the past. Only steers him away from them, and subtly as possible.

“Have any of you seen Nick?” he asks casually, and it isn’t as surprising as it used to be. Nick’s been more reserved lately; they’ve found him asleep in the main cafeteria a few times, chest rising and falling peacefully.

“No, I haven’t,” Jin says, chewing on the end of his pencil, at the same time as you say, “Unfortunately, no, Ghetto,” and it sketches out your differences cold and clear.

“Dammit,” he says, and then sighs. “Gray jumped me and asked me if I could go on a supplies run, and who am I to say no? I’ve already gotten AK and Shark tangled up in it, I just need to hunt Nick’s ass down and convince him to join. Get the gang back together. Boys night out killing walkers and shit, you know?”

“I don’t know, I’m a doctor,” Jin says flatly at the same time as you say, “I’ve never experienced one of those, but do have fun on your ‘boys night.’”

“I’ll tell you if I see him,” you add hastily as Jin and Ghetto both raise eyebrows at you. “Honestly, I’m surprised that he hasn’t visited Shelby yet today. So, when you find him, do inform him that he should probably visit his sister.”

“Alrightie, Professor,” Ghetto calls out, salutes the two of them with a goofy grin, and then shuts the door behind him so hard it rattles. 

Not even thirty minutes later and the door opens again, and Jin looks up with you, though considerably more annoyed as Shark peers through the doorway, looking uncomfortable as he sees the looks the two of them looking at him, and says, “Uh, hey, don’t mean to interrupt anything, but have either of you seen—”

“Ghetto was just here,” Jin answers. “No, we haven’t seen him. And when you do find him, tell him to visit Shelby, it’s almost four PM and we haven’t had time to visit besides the regular checkups. She’s probably getting lonely. Now can you leave us to our work and  _ please  _ tell AK not to come in with the exact same question.”

“Thanks anyway, Doctor Jin and Professor Xavier, and I will be sure to tell him that. It’s not my fault if he doesn’t listen. Stubborn bastard.” Shark gives them an awkward smile and shuts the door carefully behind him. Jin pinches the bridge of his nose. Thankfully, AK doesn’t show up.

But a few hours later, they do get visited again, this time by Major Gray. Jin looks up and makes a face because you always get distracted by him when he shows up.

Instead, when you raise your head to smile at him, your heart plummets. He’s looking somber. Scared, even, and he’s sweating and he walks over to the two of them, boots echoing loudly off the floor of the lab.

“Have the two of you—and, yes, I know Shark and Ghetto have already asked you this question, they told me that they did, but I’m still asking it—seen Nick at all in the last twenty-four hours. From until after dinner last night to right now has he shown up at all—seen Shelby, asked anything, been caught stealing leftovers,  _ anything.” _

Jin and you share a look. But this time, compared to the others, only you answer. “No, we haven’t seen him at… at all. The last time I remember seeing him was around six. I went into the cafeteria to get some water, and he was walking out. I waved at him but he didn’t answer.”

“Why,” Jin cuts out, his voice betraying a thin sense of dread that you’re feeling as well, “can you not find him? I thought he was going on patrol, or a supplies run, or something with Ghetto, AK, and Shark?”

“He was supposed to,” Gray says. “Four hours ago. Those three you mentioned, they’ve spent hours searching the CDC for him. They’ve just come to me. They say that they can’t find him at all, and nobody that they have asked can remember seeing him that much today or yesterday. In fact, Ghetto was the last one to talk to him, and that was at around three. Nobody has heard of him since—and you just saw him, didn’t you, Xavier?”

The breath catches in your throat and Jin makes a slightly strangled noise beside you. “We didn’t talk or anything. He looked… I didn’t really see him that much, actually, but he was walking a lot faster than usual. And he’s seemed… off, these past few days, in a way I can’t explain. Are you sure he hasn’t fallen asleep in some weird place again?”

“We have searched this CDC top to bottom multiple times—mainly by Ghetto, AK, and Shark, but some of my own men have helped. Now, normally, this isn’t as big of concern—people like to leave for whatever reasons they might have, but this is  _ Nick  _ we’re talking about. Nick would never go anywhere without telling someone or leaving a note. And right now, we have nothing on where he is or where he might have gone. 

Jin looks horrified by the time Gray leaves, and you can only imagine how he might feel. You’ve heard about Barney, about Sky, about Jess and leaving and getting captured and walkers and the White House blowing up, but to… to live it, experience it in real time?

Gray wasn’t as worried the first time Nick went… so to say, “missing.” He was with Bobby, and their mission was expected to take more than a few days. He only got worried when it was rumored than Red’s men were in the area and that they had been acting up, which made a lot of sense. But it wasn’t like Nick to just… disappear like this, without even telling Ghetto, of all people!

You can only fidget around for a few minutes longer before you excuse yourself. Jin nods, looking ten times his age and, with hesitation, you tell him not to tell Shelby about Nick being gone. Not just yet. He nods again, aging ten times more.

(“He’s always been haunted by something,” Shelby says mindlessly, half asleep and running a temperature of above one hundred. “Always running from something. He’s always been restless. I’m just worried for when it gets to be too much. He never talks to me anymore. He just… exists. I don’t think he’s aware of his surroundings anymore.” Then she falls asleep again. She can’t seem to stay awake for more than ten to twenty minutes these days.)

You head to your room, lay your head in your hands, and scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Lazy summer goddess  
> You can tell our whole empire  
> I don't have to see you right now  
> I don't have to see you right now
> 
> Mt. Washington by Local Natives.


End file.
